Hyderabad: Police have keen eye on provocative Tiktok content

Hyderabad: It appears like pandemic of Covid-19 and the lockdown were not enough to make people crazy, the rumours of Chinese conspiracy behind coronavirus started doing rounds leading to believe that the Chinese products should be banned in the State.

According to Special Branch (SB) of Hyderabad Police, they have received complaints about the Chinese app Tiktok being communal and provocative as its being used by persons from different religions to promote their ideologies.

A senior SB official on condition of anonymity said, "we have received few complaints about the app being provocative and the requests also suggested us that the app should be banned immediately. Moreover, with the ongoing crisis it's very crucial that we maintain peace and harmony along with maintaining law & order."

"So, it has become the primary responsibility of us to address each and every complaint and take the matter seriously, because even a minor issue in such times can lead to heavy crisis," he added.

"Further, in order to avoid any such circumstance, we have taken help of CCS to track such accounts which are provocative and promote enmity. The CCS by using advanced technological tools will be able to trace out a person/organization which is indulging in creating divide. As far as, banning Tiktok is considered, we will send a complaint to its office and ask for their version. If anything is suspicious, then proper action will be initiated by involving different department of government," explained the officer. Meanwhile, an investigation by a Delhi-based digital lab, Voyager Infosec, into more than 30,000 clips circulated this week suggests a set pattern of targeted disinformation campaign aimed at the Indian Muslim community. Initial analysis of these viral videos reveals that more than 10 million users have already watched them so far. Many of the accounts which created the content originally are being deleted regularly after the videos go viral, the report notes.

This tactic helps content creators to hide their digital footprints, according to Voyager Infosec's findings.